Advice sought on windpower | 51 comments (51 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Advice sought on windpower (none / 1)

Energy4all calls itself a more-than-profit organization ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 03:36:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 4)

They use Victorian vintage "Industrial and Provident Societies" (ie the genetically modified Companies the Cooperative movement uses in the UK) plus a good dose of borrowing.

But it's better for the Community than private development, I grant you, where you're lucky if the Community gets a new bus-shelter....

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 04:49:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 2)

I was being positive ;-)

'More-than-profit' is a good start as a meme in the present

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 05:27:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 3)

I admire both the people and what they are doing.

But they are doing it with both hands tied behind their backs!

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 05:38:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 5)

I agree, noting everything that you have told us about new wrappers/models for cooperation.

Maybe this is the time to think about 'Organize (Your country here)' being as important for the future as 'Energize (Your country here)'?

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 05:58:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 4)

Right on the button, as usual, Sven.

How can we "Energise America" when it's "organised" the way it is?

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 07:20:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 3)

To reclaim the 'means of production' and thereby redistribute wealth more equitably - this is what we have to accomplish. We need to demonstrate that cooperatives/LLPs/self-organizing systems, and all the other alternative non-hierarchical organizational systems can be more efficient, more motivated, more rewarding, more flexible and more socially oriented.

We need to show that 'cutting the fat' is no cure for the obesity of capitalist society. The concept of redundancy and decentralization in a structural system (the brain being a good example) is not an illustration of 'waste', but one of the main features of a healthy and complete ecosystem - as society should be, and as the planet should be.

My pet peeve is monocultures. Apparently efficient and apparently more productive, with all 'fat' cut away, they are indeed more efficient and productive - for quite long periods of time. But they are also dangerously susceptible to total and cataclysmic collapse.

Diversity is what we need to encourage, respect and to ensure.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 09:06:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Coops (4.00 / 4)

btw, just across the border from the Dakotas in Minn are the first examples of farmer-owned or community wind projects in the US. and they're growing.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 07:26:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Coops (4.00 / 4)

...and John Deere himself is financing.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun Aug 26th, 2007 at 07:27:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 5)

We need to demonstrate that cooperatives/LLPs/self-organizing systems, and all the other alternative non-hierarchical organizational systems can be more efficient, more motivated, more rewarding, more flexible and more socially oriented.

The problem is that none of these will make a difference if the motivation behind them remains exploitative.

There's no reason why a traditional market economy can't be run in a socially sustainable way. Increase progressive taxation, especially on unproductive speculation, fund innovation and sustainability, move money towards effective social programs - and so on.

The measures have been tried, they work, and there's no reason they couldn't work again.

What really needs to be changed is the motivation of the players. The Anglo-Saxon disease is based on the principle of fuck-you, and with the right culture fuck-you is just as likely to take over a non-hierarchical corporation as a hierarchical one.

Nothing will improve until the fuck-you narrative is debunked and replaced with a more culturally sustainable and inclusive ideology.

Until then elites will continue to see workers, customers and shareholders as resources to be exploited, and not as equals to be respected.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Aug 27th, 2007 at 11:39:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 4)

Not to speak of the little detail that to claim our hierarchical human structures are not the result of self-organisation is untenable.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Aug 27th, 2007 at 11:45:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 3)

The problem is that none of these will make a difference if the motivation behind them remains exploitative.

Which is why the requirement is for a framework within which it is to my advantage to cooperate with you/ work WITH you rather than to compete with you/ work FOR you, because we are "both on the same side".

That's what an "Open" Corporate like the UK LLP and its (non-Corporate) US relative, the LLC, enables, and why the structures I advocate are emerging.

Because they WORK.

They do so by bringing the different stakeholders together "inside the box" rather than leaving them as "costs" to be exploited outside it.

A non-hierarchical "Corporation" is still a Corporation, and it suffers from the fundamental faultline of all Corporations - whether or not "For Profit" - between the interests of the "Principal" Owner, and the "Agent" ie the management, whether they structure themselves hierarchically or not.

Production/revenue sharing between Capital provider/ Investor and user of Capital changes all that. It brings them on to the same side, takes the motivation of "self interest" and turns it around so that our self interest is actually served better by working WITH each other openly, transparently and cooperatively.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Aug 27th, 2007 at 12:19:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (4.00 / 3)

Yes, but there's nothing to stop - for example - all of us on ET getting together to sell widgets we've designed, setting up an LLP, and then using Chinese sweatshop labour to make the widgets, while we share the profits between ourselves. (Doubtless very equitably.)

LLPs are an answer - one of many - if the desire is there to be ethical in the first place.

If it's not, they do nothing to force ethical behaviour.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Mon Aug 27th, 2007 at 01:33:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Advice sought on windpower (none / 1)

Of course: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

And conversely, lots of people succeed in trading ethically despite the incentives built in to the system to do otherwise.

Bu then there's nothing to stop the Chinese widget makers clubbing together in their own "People's Corporate", nicking our widget design and selling the widgets directly to our customers on the Net....

My thesis is that a Cooperative of service users, working with a Cooperative of service providers, is actually both an ethical and an optimal structure, and that those enterprises that do not use the structure will be at a disadvantage to those that do.

I guess we'll have to see if I'm right...

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Mon Aug 27th, 2007 at 01:48:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Advice sought on windpower | 51 comments (51 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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